Mahesh Tinaikar, Indus Creed guitarist, dies at 63: ‘He lit up the way’ for Indian Rock

In the late Eighties, an Indian rock band filling a stadium was almost unthinkable. Mahesh Tinaikar was one of the people who made it happen. The guitarist, a founding member of Rock Machine (the band later known as Indus Creed), died in Mumbai after a suspected heart attack, his bandmates confirmed to Rolling Stone India. He was 63.

Musicians who came up in his wake quickly paid tribute. Singer-composer Vishal Dadlani of Pentagram, whose own band followed the road Rock Machine opened, wrote on Instagram: “India lost a true LEGEND today. Every single rockandroller since #RockMachine owes @sheeshling (Mahesh Tinaikar) a debt of gratitude for lighting up the way that we couldn’t even imagine until they walked it! An inspiring and pioneering musician, and a guy who always stood on the right side of things. Grateful I got to be on stage with @induscreednow and say thanks to all of them in public.”

That debt goes back to 1984. Tinaikar, a guitarist and music teacher raised on Deep Purple and The Who, formed Rock Machine that year with vocalist Uday Benegal, keyboardist Zubin Balaporia, bassist Mark Selwyn, guitarist Jayesh Gandhi and drummer Mark Menezes.

They toured the country relentlessly and released their debut, Rock ’n’ Roll Renegade, in 1988, with tracks like “Top of the Rock” and the title song. The Second Coming followed in 1990.

The crowds grew quickly. “Two years ago, an Indian band couldn’t draw an audience of more than 800 people. Now we get 10,000 in a stadium,” Tinaikar told The New York Times in 1989.

Even so, the scene was routinely written off as niche, and the band had its share of starts and stops. In the early Nineties they renamed themselves Indus Creed and began working Indian traditional instruments into their sound. Their 1993 single “Fireflies” became a breakout, and the 1995 self-titled album moved between urgent and soul-searching, from the hard-hitting “Trapped” to the anthem “Pretty Child.” The band split in the late Nineties.

Tinaikar’s second act began in 2009, when Benegal returned to India from a stint in the U.S. The two formed Whirling Kalapas with multi-instrumentalist Sankarshan Kini. It was an acoustic counterpart to the heavy, epic sound of Indus Creed, and it put Tinaikar back on the road across the country.

By 2010, Indus Creed had reunited too, with Tinaikar and Benegal joined by Balaporia, drummer Jai Row Kavi and bassist Rushad Mistry. Their 2012 album Evolve, released through Universal Music, returned them to their rock roots with a progressive edge on songs like “Dissolve” and a grand reworking of “Fireflies.”

Outside his bands, Tinaikar contributed to songs by fellow Indian greats such as Gary Lawyer, and he regularly shared video covers inspired by Steve Morse, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Paul Simon. Almost four decades after Rock Machine first filled a stadium, he was still playing guitar for everyone who listened.